Learn the origin of the earth through meteorite research

Part of the material that constitutes the earth is a meteorite originating in the universe. According to Phipipp Heck, a scholar from the University of Chicago and his colleagues, those meteorites are younger than the predictions of current theories.

For his analysis, Heck and colleagues studied 22 crystals from the Murchison meteorite. The crystals of the Murchison meteorite were thrown out into space from dead stars about 4.5 billion years ago, before the solar system was born. Thanks to the different constituents, scientists learned that these crystals were formed outside the solar system.

Scholars of Chicago Phipipp Heck University and Allende meteorite specimens. The dark part of the meteorite contains dust crystals formed before the solar system. Allende meteorite is the same type as the Murchison meteorite, the object of this study. (Photo: Dan Dry)

Heck said 'Neon was born in cosmic ray radiation. The concentration of neon allows us to determine how long a meteorite exists in the universe. ' His team said 17 of these crystals exist in the universe between 3 million and 200 million years, far below the previously estimated 500 million years. Only 3 of these crystals have the expected lifetime. The remaining two crystals give unreliable results.

'Knowing the age of meteorites has important implications for improving the understanding of the process of star formation and the solar system.' The team added that before the sun was formed, dense star formation produced enormous amounts of dust; This explains the difference in time.

The study was funded by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Australian National University, and the Brazilian National Council for Science and Technology Development.

Refer:

Philipp R. Heck, Frank Gyngard, Ulrich Ott, Matthias MM Meier, Janaína N. Avila, Sachiko Amari, Ernst K. Zinner, Roy S. Lewis, Heinrich Baur, and Rainer Wieler.Interstellar Residence Times of Presolar SiC Dust Grains from the Murchison Carbonaceous Meteorite.The Astrophysical Journal, 2009;698 (2): 1155 DOI: 10.1088 / 0004-637X / 698/2/1155